Letter

Racism in psychiatry

Dear healthmatters — I agree wholeheartedly with the comments of Dr Sashidharan about black mental health and psychiatry at large in the black community.

The Fanon Project, an all black project in an inner city area, sees approximately 40 people a day, most of whom have received impatient psychiatric care and have been diagnosed schizophrenic. It is constantly confronted with the after-effects of psychiatry’s attempts to remove culture and language from the diagnostic couch.

Racism is not only evident in clinical assessment and diagnosis, but at all levels of care management, from the ‘clinical cosh’ over prescription of medication, particularly for young black males, to the non-use of non-pharmacological interventions. Therapy is the bastion of the white middle class.

Inequalities in housing, employment, and the availability of after-care all impede rehabilitation, recovery and re-assimilation into the community.

The Fanon Project, which opened in Brixton in 1985, is one of the black mental health projects mentioned by Dr Sashidharan. It provides a range of services to approximately 150 referred clients, including liaison work, a day centre, washing and showering facilities, counselling and psychotherapy in an environment that is culturally safe.

Our ethos is that the excess of mental distress among black people reflects the racism and oppression that they encounter in British society, and that insensitive diagnostic criteria result in disproportionate rates of ‘diagnosis’ and incarceration.